To mark the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Quebec artist Jean Paul Riopelle, the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) is offering, starting October 27, a retrospective of his five decades of practice, which continue to inspire and inspire today. to be amazed. A look at this major exhibition which brings together a vast collection of works by the distinguished artist.
Curated by art historian, author and independent researcher Sylvie Lacerte, the exhibition casts a wide net through Riopelle’s production to unfold before our eyes all the innovative character of the creative cycles that inhabited him until the end of his active life. It lifts the veil on the artist’s vision and his boundless freedom of expression: more than 130 works brought together judiciously organize the retrospective around his legacy, straddling yesterday and today.
This is the first exhibition following the appointment of Jean-François Bélisle as director general of the NGC, who speaks of a duty to remember when asked about the symbolic potential of this exhibition.
More than a demonstration of Riopelle’s technical talents, the latter above all testifies to his creative genius and the immense legacy he left, touching his fellow artists during his lifetime and laying the foundations of a new world of art, devoid of borders, which today influences an entire generation of creators.
Riopelle stood outside the framework, sought to dissociate himself from the academicism still omnipresent in institutions: he single-handedly invented new approaches and went beyond the agreed expectations of the environment. “We see Riopelle venturing off the beaten track, pushing the limits of painting by applying it with a palette knife and aerosol spray, or even delving into sculpture, engraving, drawing and even collage , constantly challenging the boundaries between figuration and abstraction,” says Mr. Bélisle of the highly anticipated exhibition.
At the crossroads of times
Rare are the artists who have the honor of being granted not one, but two retrospectives within an institution like the NGC. However, Riopelle appears on this list, he who was the subject of a major exhibition there in 1963, at the age of only 40. Coming out of a period of prosperous creation when he had just represented Canada at the Venice Biennale, Riopelle was experiencing an important period at this time — “for him, and also for us,” suggests the director general of the NGC.
In the exhibition, the public meets the artist at intervals, allowing them to discover the common thread of an immense practice with characteristic periods.
Majestic impasto mosaics; bronze sculptures representing the emblematic and totemic owl of Riopelle; large canvases all over » whose bursting gestures suggest choreographies carried out, brush in hand, near the canvas: the dialogues articulated by Commissioner Lacerte reflect a fruitful and exceptional career. “I wanted to demonstrate the variety of Jean Paul Riopelle’s practice. […] He is a visionary explorer who has touched several techniques and mediums: he never wanted to stop,” says the woman who spent more than three years with the artist’s work, learning to rub shoulders with it and to draw from it new readings.
The chronological order favored by the curator gives its name to the exhibition: At the crossroads of times. His choice of works, some prominent and others never presented, shows pivotal moments in the artist’s life as well as attempts that belong more to the sphere of the intimate.
Alongside them, we find works by Riopelle’s contemporaries – notably Alberto Giacometti, Serge Lemoyne, Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell and Françoise Sullivan – and projects by current artists, such as Caroline Monnet, Marc-Antoine K. Phaneuf and Marc Séguin , which, in a certain way, carry his legacy today. These “guests” make their way through the space and exhibit points of overlap with Riopelle’s practice and life, such as an impulse towards indigenous cultures, partisanship for the Montreal Canadiens or a deep love for nature.
The approach, original and insightful, makes it possible to create an encounter between eras – that of Riopelle’s active practice, and that of a generation of artists propelled by the breath of his innovative and intelligent practice which has nevertheless never been lost in “affective strength and sensitivity”, according to Bélisle.
Meet the essential
Focusing on the deployment of its own collection, but also on the addition of numerous works drawn from public and private collections, the National Gallery of Canada is making this exhibition one of the most important granted to the artist .
Of the latest demonstrations of his work, let us think in particular of Jean Paul Riopelle. Metamorphoses (National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec, 2014-2022) and Riopelle. Meeting northern territories and indigenous cultures (Montreal National Museum of Fine Arts, 2020-2021), the retrospective orchestrated by the NGC in collaboration with Sylvie Lacerte is distinguished by the exhaustiveness of the catalog of her works and by its intention to “bring to life” Riopelle.
The exhibition, which will be circulated and will travel to the Winnipeg Art Gallery next spring, is an invitation to meet the essential Riopelle, “icon of modern art”, as M recalls.me Lacerte.